


The Curse Of the Spiral Eye

by NightmareExhibition



Category: Original Work, The Thirteenth Demon Altar of the Spiral Eye
Genre: Adaptation, Alternate Universe, Angelic Possession, Angels, Blood, Blood and Gore, Blood and Torture, Demonic Possession, Demons, Deportation-Broken Family, Dimension Travel, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Exploitation, F/F, F/M, Fantasy, Fix Fic, Ghosts, Horror, I really just hate this damn book, Immigration & Emigration, Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, M/M, Multi, Other, Rating May Change, Ratings: R, Re-Write Fic, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Snacks & Snack Food, Torture, hate fic, slowly becoming original fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 17:23:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8254102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightmareExhibition/pseuds/NightmareExhibition
Summary: What do you get when you take a foul-mouthed magician, an irritable Goth teen, his Christian physicist mother, a precocious bodyguard, and a nervous reverend and throw them all into the midst of a church swarming with supernatural creatures?A mess. A goddamn mess.(Proper summary to follow)





	1. Opening, or "Little White Lies."

Chapter 1

Collette, Louisiana

  


Everything would have been fine if he hadn’t dropped the flashlight.

The reverend of Saint Louis United Methodist Church was down on all fours, swiping his hands frantically across the rough carpet in the near pitch-blackness. His hand bumped along the edge of the pews, and he tried not to panic. If the flashlight had rolled under one of the pews it would take a lot more time to find it, time he didn’t have. And if it had  broken…

The Reverend’s heart raced, and he prayed for daylight. On sunny days the light streamed through the skylight and the stained glass windows above the communion table, illuminating the whole of the sanctuary at once. But today the sky was overcast, a gray, troubled mass of clouds, and what thin, sickly rays of light had managed to leak through the dust-covered panes were far to weak to drive back the shadows and the things that lurked within.

It should have been easy. Walk in, grab what he needed, walk out. The person he'd contacted about the problem the previous week, a man called Joe something who supposedly specialized in such unconventional matters, had told him to avoid the church, especially at night. But he couldn't wait any longer; he had to get to his office. And so at half past noon he'd kissed Emily goodbye and, armed with nothing but a flashlight, a set of keys, and a copy of the Good Book, had set out on the path to reclaiming his church.

But every aspect of his plan had gone awry, right from the start. And now here he was, crawling around like a madman on the floor in the sanctuary where this whole nightmare had started. He was a man of God, a man of faith. How could things have gone so wrong?

After what felt like hours his hand collided with something cylindrical.  Finally. He was saved! He grabbed the flashlight and rose unsteadily to his feet, wiping the sweat from his brow before feeling for the switch and clicked it on.

On.

On.

It wasn’t working. The damned thing wasn’t working. He shook the flashlight once, twice, three times, then tried the switch again – to no avail. Panic rose like a tidal wave withing him as he smacked the device in a desperate attempt to enliven its circuits.

Suddenly something zipped by his ear, and his throat made a tight sound as he flinched away from the invisible enemy. It passed by a second time, and he almost threw himself sideways in terror.

Again the sound came and went, but this time as he jumped to avoid it he tripped; unable to regain his footing he fell, his spine hitting hard against one of the pews as he slid to the floor. Clutching the flashlight to his chest, the reverend’s muscles were as tight and tremulous as piano wire as he stared around wildly in search of his foe. Then the sound returned, closer than before, and to his horror it stopped without retreating at what sounded like mere inches from his left ear.

For a long time he sat in silence, afraid to do so much as twitch or breathe too harshly. He considered that he would die here, trapped in this hell of a church, defeated by the very evil that he, a reverend, a messenger of God and a leader of His flock, was supposed to cast out. He clasped the flashlight tighter, but had to readjust his grip to avoid the sharp ridges near the bottom of the handle.

He stopped. Could it be? He tested the ridges again, and his heart flew as he realized he was touching the screw threads on the cap of the battery housing. With trembling hands he painstakingly screwed the cap back into place, then aimed the device like a cannon along the left side of the pew. Gathering the last of his courage, in his mind he recited John 3:20 to give him the strength for what he was about to do:  For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.

He hit the switch.

On the pew not a foot from where he sat a single fly had alighted and was cleaning itself, heedless of the reverend’s proximity. A wave of relief cascaded over him, and he laughed, tears in his eyes, as he was swept away by the simple euphoria of safety. He hauled himself up off the ground, and with a new spring in his step headed back towards his office.

How foolish he had been! When his flock had come to him with tales of ghosts, of demons, of terrible and unspeakable horrors, of course he had been skeptical. And yet he had let his own better judgment be persuaded by nothing more than superstition and coincidence. He swiped at the sweat that had accumulated on his brow as he entered the back hallway, and laughed again at the absurdity of it all. Running from an insect! Fleeing a fly! How ludicrous. Disgusting though it may be, a fly is hardly the visage of evil incarnate.

Flies, plural,  he corrected. For on the stretch of wall before him three more of the creatures were illuminated by the beam from his flashlight; they fled their perches as he passed by. A few feet further down the hall more flies were scuttling back and forth like hermit crabs along the wall’s cracked and peeling paint. He cringed. That made ten so far, and he wasn’t even all the way to his office door! Since when had he allowed his church to fall in to such a state of disrepair? He made a mental note to repaint as soon as the church reopened.

As he approached the door to his office, he heard the buzzing of many more flies ahead. The closer he got the louder it grew, and he looked up to see the tiny creatures flying in jagged arcs around the unlit ceiling fixtures.

Some animal must have gotten in and starved to death,  he thought irritably, and he tried to parse out how much it would cost to call a cleanup service. Service… yes, he would have to call that specialist from before and cancel their contract. After all, the events of the past three months all must have rational explanations. And how could he be sure some of the more outlandish things had even  happened?  This whole debacle was probably just the product of superstition and perhaps even substance abuse among his congregation. He made a mental note to include a call to temperance in his next sermon as he turned the knob.

The door flew open, striking him in the right shoulder. He dropped the flashlight and was sent sprawling as hundreds, nay, thousands of black flies poured from the opening. The Reverend barely had time to register their presence before the swarm shot toward him like a missile and swallowed him whole.

When he came to he found himself in the church’s foyer. He tried to breathe but choked, and to his horror when he coughed a slew of flues came out, some dead, other still twitching and spasming in tiny, insectile death throws. He retched, and more of the creatures came up, though most of these had succumb to the acidity of his digestive tract and had already buzzed their last.

A few flies settled down on the carpet a few inches away, and all composure fled him as a swarm of the creatures began to coalesce on front of him. He scuttled back on all fours as the seething mass of organisms in front of him organized itself into a repulsive, lopsided approximation of a human form. The shape was roughly bipedal, having two legs that touched the ground and two arms that hung at its shoulders, but the proportions were all wrong. The arms, for one, were terribly distended, as were the fingers, and the long limbs bowed outward from the shoulder to hang down asymmetrically, one almost to the ground, the other to what might have on a human been its waist. The legs started out normally enough, but at the base they spread radially into a sort of disc shape, and so the masses that should have looked like feet instead resembled two rapidly spinning whirlpools of insects. There were no elbows, nor knees nor wrists nor joints of any kind; had they been present, in any case the creature wouldn’t have need them. 

But the worst part of all was the head, an ovular bulb that spun around like a children’s teacup ride above the shoulders. There were no defining features of any sort, and in fact there was nothing much to suggest that it  was a head, save for that it floated above the body in the position that a head should rightfully be. No, it was just round and slightly oblong, a quality that the reverend found gave it the disturbing likeness of an egg, something he found disturbing because at the present moment the reverend couldn’t be reminded of an egg of any sort without having to consider the possibility of it hatching. Despite himself he tried to imagine anything worse than the thing he currently faced, and he felt like retching a second time as he realized, to his horror, that he could.

Suddenly a blinding light burst its way into the foyer from behind his head. The reverend wheeled to see the double doors at the entrance had been flung open, and in their midst a single solitary figure appeared silhouetted by the brilliance of the Louisiana sunset. As the reverend noticed the newcomer so too did the creature, and though it had no eyes it stared hungrily at the shadow in the doorway.

“Get back!” the reverend shouted, his voice hoarse and cracked, “Get away!”

But the shadow did not retreat, and in fact started moving towards him. The fly creature crouched, an odd maneuver in which its whole body bent forward save for the legs, which curved oppositely, and had the unsettling effect of causing the creature to resemble a giant, buzzing question mark with a taste for human flesh.

“Get away!” he shouted again. What else could he say? Fear had wrecked his disposition, and it was as if his thoughts were moving both dizzyingly fast and painfully slow all at once. The person moved into the dim of the church, and for the first time the reverend was able to make out their features. It was a woman, with dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, hands tucked into the pockets of a gray denim jacket, and a black backpack slung over one shoulder. She also appeared to be chewing gum.

The flies of the head parted, and from the gape a sound like a revving chainsaw tore its way out of the creature’s new-found mouth, so loud and so resonant that the church itself shook on its foundation.

“No!” he cried, but it was too late. The thing launched itself towards her, thousands of flies traveling as one droning mass towards their prey–

A sudden gout of flame exploded in front of the woman, and an alien shriek reverberated around the room as scores of flies dropped to the floor, charred and burnt beyond recognition. The remaining flies regrouped a few feet away, and the reverend noticed its limbs seemed a little thinner than before. 

“Flies. Like I’ve never seen that before,” the woman said, slipping her hand inside her jacket and pulling out an oblong piece of paper covered in a sort of writing the reverend didn’t recognize.

And then the creature did the last thing the reverend expected:

It spoke.

“How. Dzare. YOU.” it said in a voice like a band saw, its ever-shifting surface rippling in evident rage. The woman just laughed in its frenetic, spinning orb of a face.

“Something bugging you?” she said, smirking at her own joke and waving the strip of paper around mockingly.

“Thizz. Plazze. Belongzz. To. Thhe. Zpiral. Eyye.” the thing droned, “Trezzpazzerzz. Whill. Bee. Dezztroyed.”

Suddenly all the humor drained out of her face, and she looked at the creature with murderous intensity.

“What did you just say?”

“Begonne. Hyoomann.” it said, “Or. Faczze. Thhy. Deathhh.”

“I think it’s time for you to go,” she said monotonously, and cast the paper out in front of her.

A ribbon of flame shot out from the surface of the paper and arced sharply towards its target with a roar of rapidly heated air. The creature shifted sharply to the side in a dodge, but the fire was faster, and several dozen more flies went up in flames. The reverend suppressed a gag as the fetid smell of burning chitin suffused the room.

“Thizz. Izzzn’t. Ovver.” the creature screeched and dissolved into a dark swarm that burst through one boarded up window and fled into the dusk.

The woman looked down at the reverend, as if she had just that moment noticing his presence, and popped another piece of gum in her mouth. She looked at him with the sort of expression one usually reserves for when trying to calculate sales tax, and after a moment offered him a hand. He took it gratefully, and after rising unsteadily to his feet he realized that she was a lot shorter than he'd originally supposed.

"You Parker?" she said.

“W-what?”

“Reverend Parker. St Lucia Methodist, Collette Louisiana”

“That’s- I mean yes, I am,” he said, “But how do you…?”

The woman rolled her eyes, then searched her pockets until she produced a small crumpled piece of card stock, which she gave him. It said:

Joe Steele

Exorcisms, Exterminations, Other 

Paranormal Services

“If you really don’t know what it is… Call.”

Reverend Parker looked up in surprise. 

“You…  you’re Joe Steele?” he said. The woman smirked.

“ Surprise.  Now, ”  she said, “let’s beat it before something beats  us.”

“But...” said Parker, “didn’t you just drive that thing away?”

“What, Swarmy? Oh no, he’ll be back,” she said, then added gravely: 

“With friends.”

  



	2. Tea Time and Tall Tales, or "What not to say to a pregnant woman."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Un-Revised, Un-Edited

Chapter 2: [Unedited]

Tick… tick…tick… tick…

The clock above the mantle clicked and ticked in mounting mechanical heartbeats as it looked out over the strange, discordant silence that had fallen in between the three people below. Finally out from the deafening silence there came a single, unamused voice.

“So you believe our church is…possessed?”

Emily Parker sat delicately on the edge of the couch - an impressive accomplishment, given that her pregnant stomach made movement especially awkward on a good day - one finger tapping on the edge of her bone-china teacup in double-time with the clock.

Tick-click, tick-click, tick-click, tick-click…

Despite her Southern roots and a mother who insisted the true measure of a woman’s hospitality was an enduring and silent disposition, Emily Parker was not the sort to suffer fools gladly. 

She brushed a strand of chocolate brown hair away from her face and once again glanced over at her husband, who was nervously picking at the edges of his fingernails and avoiding meeting her gaze. He’d been uncharacteristically tight-lipped about the events that had transpired at the church, but before she’d had a chance to question him further  that person  had shown up on their doorstep and 

Steele knocked back her tea like a fifth of whiskey and set the cup down with a hard  clack on the saucer that rested on the coffee table in front of her. 

Tick-click, tick-click, tick-click-CLACK-tick-click…

She glared up at the clock and was temporarily overwhelmed with the urge to punch it square in its stupid, tick-tocking face. Instead she picked at the edges of her jacket and wondered how much longer she could stay sane in the pastel explosion of flower prints and doilies that was the Parker’s living room. She’d already been talking to them for an hour, and as far as she could tell they hadn’t made any progress.

“Possession?” Steele answered, helping herself to another cuppa, “Not likely. But definitely demonic.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Parker.

The condescension in the woman’s eyes started curdling into something that more closely resembled loathing, and shot yet another accusatory glance in Steele’s direction before staring worriedly at her husband, who’d been wringing his hand and staring at the carpet ever since the conversation began.

“Thank you for your… help, Ms. Steele,” Emily said coldly, “but I think we’re going to try and deal with the matter ourselves.”

Steele was about to argue her point again when an uncertain throat cleared itself to her right.

“Maybe… maybe we should consider it, Em.”

Emily looked at her husband in surprise.

“Tom, let me handle th -”

Steele nearly choked on her tea.

“ Your name is Tom??”  she said incredulously.

Tom looked over at her, startled. 

“Y-yes. It is…” said Tom.

“Do you have a problem with my husband’s name,  Ms. Steele?” said Emily, her eyes staring daggers at her guest.

“Not particularly. It’s just… I kind of assumed your first name was Parker.” said Steele.

Tom and Emily Parker stared at her. Neither of them quite knew how to take that last comment.

Steele rolled her eyes.

“Look, that’s not important. What’s important is what happens next.”

“Supposing you’re right about all this, of course.”

As irritating as it was, Steele couldn’t blame her for being suspicious. The Reverend looked for all intents and purposes as if he’d been mugged, or run over. Or both. Dirt, dust, and charred insect carcasses littered his clothing; there was a bloody tear in his once-white collared shirt through which a large and slowly yellowing bruise could be seen; and there was a look of such shell-shocked bewilderment etched into his countenance, as if now that the adrenaline had finally left his system the small portion of his brain that had believed it could process this new and terrifying version of reality had just packed up its things and given final notice. As far as Mrs. Parker was concerned, her husband’s sorry state was Steele’s doing. 

“And it seems you’re telling us that you, and you alone, can fix it.” Emily said.

Goddamn it woman,  Steele thought, trying not to roll her eyes,  we’ve been through this already.

“Not alone, per se,” said Steele, intentionally ignoring the implications of her question, “I’ll probably call a buddy of mine, see if he can pitch in. But I wouldn’t have much of a business if I couldn’t produce results.”

“No,” said Emily coldly, “I suppose you wouldn’t.”

Fuck. Steele thought. She could just feel this contract slipping away from her. At first she’d supposed Mrs. Parker was just skeptical, but now it seemed as if something else was going on. It wasn’t just that she wasn’t buying what Steele was selling; it was that she seemed to have been set against the idea from the very beginning.

Emily’s eyes suddenly grew very tired, and she rubbed her forehead with one hand.

“Ms. Steele, I think you misunderstand me,” she said, “ It’s not that I don’t believe there’s something… unnatural… going on in that place. I’ve seen too much in these past few months to think otherwise. We’ve talked to the police, two private investigators, even an exorcist. Most of them didn’t believe a word of it, and the rest took what little money we had saved to fix up the church and ran off. And now that we have Mr. Keterick’s offer to consider - ”

“Wait, who?” said Steele. So there  was something else going on.

“Vincent Keterick. He’s a businessman, one of those corporate types from Bossier City. Six months ago the members of our congregations all got a copy of a news article - fake, of course - accusing my husband of having a child with another woman and paying her off to save face. Almost a third of our congregation up and left because of it. Then a few weeks later, everyone in town receive a copy of this brochure…”

Emily rose unsteadily to her feet, and went over to a small table piled with bills and other mail, pulled out a glossy trifold brochure. She then handed it to Steele, who looked at it with interest. On the cover was a glossy picture of an apartment complex, emblazoned with the words “ Coming Soon to Your Area: Keterick and Sons Luxury Condominiums.” A sticker on the front said “Reserve Your Spot Today!”

“About two months ago we got a phone call from Mr. Keterick’s office. Said he wanted to talk about the ‘predicament’ with our church. He offered to buy the church from us. Now it was perfectly obvious to us that he’d been the one spreading all those outrageous rumors, and when we confronted him about it he didn’t expressly deny it. So naturally we turned him down. Not a week later we started hearing stories from the congregation. Unexplainable stories. Things going missing from locked rooms and ending up in others. Figures appearing and and disappearing before their very eyes. Sometimes there’s a girl in a flower dress with eyes like pitch who appears at the end of the hallway…” Emily shivered visibly, and Steele could tell that this particular unexplainable tale was her own.

“It was always inexplicable. But for a while it seemed mostly harmless. At the time…” 

She glanced at her husband, who met her gaze for only a second before looking away, and took a deep breath.

“At the time we had no idea how badly things would turn out.”

“Lenora…” Tom Parker said quietly.

“Who’s Lenora?” said Steele.

“She -” Tom said, his voice wavering, but he quickly cleared his throat and continued.

“She was a deacon at the church. A few weeks after the… incidents… started, Lenora was preparing to hold a choir meeting in one of the basement classrooms…the building used to be a schoolhouse, you see… and she was planning on meeting her sister for dinner after. Shauna, is her name. When she didn’t show up, Shauna got worried and went over to the church. But when she… when she got there…” he broke off, his hands clenching shakily at his sides. Emily reached over and patted him on the knee.

“Lenora had been, for lack of a kinder term, dismembered,” she said.

There was a moment of tense silence as that final declaration hung over the room like a funeral pall.

“The police closed the case, saying it was the work of a serial killer. ”

It isn’t that I don’t understand how serious this situation is. But put simply what I don’t believe is that you could do anything to help us. We’re going sell the church and move on with our lives. Whatever happens then will be Keterick’s problem.”

I was wondering who’d died… 

“Do you really think that’ll solve anything?” said Steele.

“Excise me?” said Emily.

Steel leaned back in her chair and folded her arms.

“This guy has been spreading rumors about your husband’s personal conduct for what, half a year? The incidents at the church have been going on for almost as long. And then there’s the murder. Do you think people are going to forget about this any time soon? 

“So what happens next? You just blow them off, pick up and start over? Well I can assure you, Mrs. Parker, the rumors will follow you. They always do. And if I’m right about what’s going on at your church, there’s a very good chance these same sorts of incidents will just keep happening.

“I suppose you could run. Some people do. Keep moving, hope whatever goes bump in the night will just give up after a while, give up and leave you alone. But it won’t. These creatures are patient. And they’re smart. And they  will  outlast you. And when your child is born, what will you do then?”

Emily’s hands went instinctively to her stomach.

“Ms. Steele, you’re trying my patience -”

“And I’ll  keep trying it until you understand that this problem isn’t going to go away simply because it’s ignored or forced out of sight. But if I can link Keterick to the rumors and clear out your church’s… let’s call it and infestation, you’ll be in the clear.”

Steele fished through her backpack and pulled out a slightly rumpled stack of papers and setting it on the coffee table.

“A standard contract,” Steele explained without being asked, “Well, as standard as you can get is this bass-ackwards profession. I’m not going to ask you to sign it. I know that’s not going to happen unless you see results. Keeping that in mind, I’m willing to make you a deal.

“ I’ll start working on getting you your church back to normal, no paperwork required. Then when I’m finished you can decide whether or not I’ve screwed you over; and  when you see that I haven’t, you sign and I get paid. Call it a ‘Try Before You Buy’ sort of arrangement.”

Emily looked at the document, then up at Steele. No longer making any attempt at civility, her gaze betrayed a shrewd and calculating disposition.

“I don’t like you, Ms. Steele.”

Steele smirked. Between pleasantries and brutal honesty, she certainly preferred the latter.

“I know. So do we have a deal?”

Tick.

They shook on it, and that was that.

———

“Goddamit Seph pick up the goddamn phone,” Steele growled into her cell phone receiver after being instructed for the third time to leave a massage after the sound of the tone. She stabbed her fork into one of the pancakes on her paisley rimmed plate and tore off another piece, biting into it a bit harder than necessary as she dialed the number for the fourth time. 

She was sitting in a small window booth at  Frannie’s Place , a roadside diner and one of those places that almost perfectly straddled the line between quaint and tacky. The paint that covered the façade was bright enough to pass for new despite the many chips and cracks, although the teal-and-powder-pink color scheme was more than a few decades out of style. The cherry red vinyl seats on the booths and stools had a habit of peeling and flaking off on the trousers of the patrons, but besides this they would have led a rather unobtrusive existence were it not for the deep forest green laminate that covered both the booth tables and the bar, which created a sort of perpetual impression that someone somewhere should be hanging colored lights and mistletoe.

She took a sip of coffee and almost spit it back out. And she’d thought the dives in Jersey had bad coffee. She picked up the sugar dispenser and poured a portion of its contents into the cup.

For the fourth time her call rang through to the answering machine, and the automated message began to play.

“You’ve reached the Tech Wizard’s Workbench: Electronics for Sale, Rent, and Repair. Unfortunately no one can come to the phone right n – HEY JOE WHAZZUP GIRRL???” came the ear-splitting voice of Seph Hale from the other end of the line, interrupting the prerecorded version of himself. Steele suppressed a groan. Now she almost wised he  hadn’t  answered.

“Seph – ”

“HOW YA BEEN?! I ain’t seen you since Lafayette found that banshee nest in Queens, and that was FOREVER AGO! You still driving that old stick shift? You know one o’ these days that old thing’s gonna– ”

“ Seph – ”

“ – snap in half like peanut brittle.  Old  peanut brittle.” He laughed at his own joke, then added, “And probably at the WORST possible time too, seeing as luck really ain’t your –”

“ SEPH , would you shut your trap for a half a goddamn second and listen?!” The woman who was wiping down the bar at the diner glanced up at Steele’s outburst and raised an eyebrow.

“OKAY- Jesus keep yer shirt on,” Seph drawled, “I take it you ain’t makin’ a social call. I get it, I get it. Straight to business. No time for chit-chat. It's cool. Whatcha gon do this time? More ghost bustin’?”

“I told you not to call it that,” Steele said, rubbing her temple with the heel of her palm.

“And  no , it’s not ghosts this time.”

“Then what –” there was a sudden crashing sound, then Steele heard Seph screaming:

“GET OUTTA HERE YOU - hold on, Joe, I gotta - ”

There was a clatter as Seph dropped the receiver. In the background she heard some grinding noises, and laughter that sounded like the combination of a monkey and a jackhammer, then a menacing revving sound accompanied by a tirade of swearing in Seph’s voice. Steele heard the receiver being picked back up, accompanied by a slightly out-of-breath Seph on the other end.

“Sorry… about that… gremlins were…trying to eat Baby again.”

Seph’s ‘Baby’ was neither his child nor his significant other, though it could have been argued that he loved it just as dearly. Baby was a computer, or more precisely a system of computers, whose computing power rivaled that of most small supercomputers. It had been assembled with magic, or as Seph called it his “mega awesome computer powers,” and as such had capabilities that defied the normal laws of physics. The nineteen-year old wiz kid’s idiosyncratic approach to technomancy had led to an inordinate amount of stray magic energy poling in and around his shop, and as a result a small colony of gremlins - imp like beings who feed on the remnants of magic spells - had moved in and since then had been trying like mad to eat every last one of his precious computers.

“Seph… was that a chainsaw?”

“Hells yeah it was!” he said. She could almost hear his manic grin through the phone. “Nothing drives off gremlins like loud, entirely non-magical power tools!”

Steele rubbed her eyes and grimaced as she took another sip of sour coffee.

“Seph.  Focus. I need your help with something.”

She heard a low whistling from the other side of the phone.

“If you’re askin’ me for help you must be REALLY in it up to your neck. So what exactly would I be - ”

It's the Spiral Eye, Seph. He’s back.”

There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line. 

“Fuck.  Fuck. Okay. What do you need from me?”

“Depends on how fast you can get down to Louisiana.”

There was a long pause

“I can’t Joe,” said Seph, “I’m real sorry. The gremlins ate Baby’s Reinholdt regulator, and if I’m not here to reset the mana flow manually the whole system might blow. I’m stuck in the shop until Baby’s new parts come in.”

“Shit. Fine. I’ll figure something out.”

“Joe,” Seph said, his once-jovial voice now uncharacteristically morose, “I know you’re a right big fan of flyin’ solo, but if that bastard’s involved…

“Listen, I may not be able to be there myself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t send someone your way. I got this cousin, she’s used some of my merch before and could probably be useful to ya. She lives in Alexandria, so she could probably make it to Collette by tomorrow. I could ask her for a favor, if you like.”

Steele hadn’t told him where she was, but she didn’t need to. Seph tracked every bit of communication he ever received, be it by phone, computer, or even postal service. It was a bit creepy, she had to admit, but Steele had given up trying to dissuade him a long time ago. The kid had his reasons for being paranoid.

“This cousin in the loop?” said Steele.

Seph laughed nervously, which for him was a bit out of the ordinary.

“Well… in a way, sorta. She’s a physicist, but she’s a pretty firm believer in the supernatural. In a way. You’ll… you’ll see when you meet her.”

Steele was suspicious, but she was in no position to look a gift physicist in the mouth.

“If you say so. I could use the assist on this one.”

“No prob, bob. Tell ya what. If I find anyone else willing to hop on the crazy train to demon town, I’ll send them your way. Sound good?”

“Yeah, thanks” Steele said, trying not to sound too relieved. Maybe she  was in it over her head.

“Then it’s a go, Joe.”

“The rhyming, Seph. Stop.”

“Yo da boss, Hoss.”

“Seph-” she began. He tittered nervously on the other end of the line.

“Just tryin’ ta lighten the mood. Over ‘n out.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies! You've reached the end of Chapter 2.


End file.
